A lot has been on my mind this week, including a research report by Careerbuilder.com that just came out stating that “One-in-Five Employers Use Social Networking Sites to Research Job Candidates.” In the UK, this number is “One-in-Four,” which is only 3% more. Everyone started blogging and writing about this report. When this press release first came out, I thought to myself “nice, this is more evidence for why people need to care about the existence of their personal brand on social networks.” Then I took my nightly run around my apartment complex and started to think hard about this. First, I will cite the key take-aways from this report and let you analyze it for yourself. Second, I will give you my thoughts. Third, I’ll give you a few tips.
The research
Major points
- 22% of hiring managers use social networks to research profiles (+11% from 2006)
- 34% of hiring managers dismissed a candidate based on what they found (out of the 22%)
- 24% of hiring managers found information that was used to hire a candidate
Top 3 things that turned hiring managers away
- 41% of candidates posted information about them drinking or using drugs
- 40% of candidates posted provocative or inappropriate photographs or information
- 29% of candidates had poor communication skills
Top 3 things that help candidates out
- 48% of candidates background supported their qualifications for the job
- 43% of candidates had great communication skills
- 40% of candidates was a good fit for the company’s culture
My thoughts
First off, this research isn’t groundbreaking. I think everyone can assume that employers are viewing your profiles on social networks. The social network tends to be the destination after an employer Google’s your name. I’ve seen reports like this one in the past year or so and they all forget to break down the research by demographic. I want to know what age groups they are recruiting for when they did the survey. I’m looking for something like this: “75% of Gen-Y’ers lose opportunities based on their Facebook profile.” To me, when it comes to social media, demographic matters a lot. In the future, say 2 years from now, it won’t matter, but while it does, I want to know the split.
Secondly, even if the numbers were dimmed down, to 5%, it would still be a big deal. I say this because as long as any recruiter is using social networks to research
candidates, then it matters! I believe more recruiters won’t admit they are going through this routine because their company doesn’t embrace social networking in the workplace. A lot of companies think that their employees use them to play games or get distracted.
Lastly, let’s quickly compare this survey to ExecuNet’s digital dirt survey of 2006. We can only assume from the Careerbuilder.com survey that it is a diverse audience (see my first point). ExecuNet is strickly executives, hence the name. The ExecuNet survey said 77% of executives are googled and 35% are eliminated based on what they find. It’s 2008 (almost 2009 now) and I bet that 77% is up to 90% and that 35% is up to 50%. Either way, the more a company is investing in human capital, the better the chances are that they will use Google/social networks to conduct background checks.
Personal branding tips
- Be a content producer, not just a consumer, in order to be visible to recruiters.
- Review your Google results on a regular basis, with a laser eye on the top 10 results for your name.
- Pass this post onto your friends immediately or you aren’t a friend.
- Use privacy options as much as you can on social networks and treat your profile, even if it’s private, as a public place.
